


i'll never forget you for as long i live.

by mayaetienne



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 2 + 1 Things, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Living Together, Loss, Not Beta Read, Post-Canon, Work In Progress, blackhill - Freeform, i guess, i swear there is a happy ending i need you to know this, jk they apart, like death apart :), this author continue to overuse italics i am very sorry they are very useful okay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:35:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28309092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayaetienne/pseuds/mayaetienne
Summary: Maria and Natasha both learn how to live without each other the years they are apart. (And they also re-learn how to live together again.)
Relationships: Maria Hill/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	i'll never forget you for as long i live.

**Author's Note:**

> yes hi i have been trying to write this for a month and it has been screaming at me to post it, so here you go fic. are you happy now?

There's this lingering feeling of despair that she carries along with her every time she moves. It pulls her down, pushes her to make her way back under the covers, spending another day in her bed.

It’s been two weeks. Fourteen days. Three hundred and thirty six hours.

This feeling of hopelessness, she wonders if it’ll ever go away. Whether it’ll leave her soul or plant itself permanently.

She can hear it now, the ghostly voices of all that she’s haunted, _this is the downfall of Natasha Romanoff._ _She’ll crash and burn, so disastrously and beautifully that even her own soul couldn’t save her._

She doesn’t talk to anyone for two weeks. They’re all too busy dealing with their own sorrows and tears over the longing for their partners, friends and family to deal with someone else's.

So she has to learn how to survive without her. Back then, before she met Maria, she willed herself to never tie herself down. Never let herself be known. Natasha still held those sentiments, but it all stopped when they were arguing. Looking back, it was the most stupid thing she’s ever done, fighting Maria on letting her go.

Those ghostly voices of all those she’s haunted reappeared. 

She was about to tell Maria to leave, that she didn’t really  _ want _ Natasha, she wanted the  _ idea _ of her. 

_ “You’re like a gun pointed to my head.” She says ever so quietly, as if she knows about not waking the ghosts. “I can run forever, forever Natasha, but it’ll still be there.” _

_ Maria reaches out and holds Natasha’s hands, holding them up to her heart. _

_ “I know you. You. You out of all people know how really, truly being known can lead into downfalls.” She steps closer, brushes away a strand away from her face. Natasha looks into those blue eyes, cool and unforgiving, but always bringing her home.  _

So Natasha leans in, reminding herself of why she stays, why she let herself be known.

“Stay.”

-

By the end of the first month she thinks she’s got a hold of it, until Steve finds her on the kitchen floor, clutching a burnt lasagna in her hands.

Natasha has historically never been a good cook. Maria had banned her from the kitchen, after the one time she tried to make pancakes and ended up burning the pancakes and the pan.

Nevertheless, she thought it would be a good idea. Something that would remind her of Maria.

She’s lying.

Everything reminds her of Maria.

The coffee. The leather jacket draped over the chair. The paperwork strewn across the desk. The desk that reminds her of the one she bought whilst working undercover. The exposed brick wall, eerily similar to the one in their apartment.

Mid-century modern furniture. Leather chairs, in front of the fireplace. Bookshelves covering the walls. Liho sleeping in the chairs. Maria sitting on the dining table, furiously typing to a politician who won’t comply with her. Adoption papers, waiting to be notarised.

The adoption.

_ Shit. _

Another person she’ll have to add to the ghosts of her past, join them in her nightmares.

Steve helps her up and brings her back to her room.

Natasha’s about to fall victim to the ghosts before Steve hands her phone to her.

“Call her.” He says, voice heavy.  _ Fuck, _ she forgot that he’d lost Bucky and Sam.

“It might help.” He gives her a sad, but encouraging smile considering the circumstances before leaving the room.

> This is Hill. Leave a message and if I feel like it I’ll call you back.
> 
> Uh, hi. God, this is so stupid. I tried to make your lasagna today, it did not go well. Ended up with Steve finding me on the kitchen floor crying over it being burnt. Tony and Bruce are trying to figure out how to get everyone back. I miss you. But it'll be fine, they’ll probably figure it out in a week and we’ll laugh over how dramatic I was being. See you. 

-

Natasha listens to that voicemail again. 

It’s been a year.

She looks back, how naive and hopeful she was. How she really believed that things would be fine again, that it would be that simple. 

It still hurts. Fuck, it still hurts.

_ When will it stop hurting? _

_ When will the weight of everyone being held in my shoulders finally sink in and drop me down to the ground? _

Natasha’s been shot, stabbed, punched, kicked, but nothing,  _ nothing _ , compares to the pain she’s feeling.

They weren’t kidding when they said love fucking hurts. It really fucking does. The funny thing is, she didn’t even realise she was in love until May pointed it out at one of those Stark parties.

_ Maria was wearing an emerald green suit, Natasha in a red one. (It was Christmas.) _

_ She was quietly observing the party, sipping on champagne until May walked over. _

_ “I see you got dragged into this.” _

_ She hums in response, “Phil wanted to go.” _

_ She laughs into her glass and takes a sip. “Of course he did. Anything to see Steve.” _

_ “Nice Christmas theme you’ve got going there.” _

_ She turned and faced May, confusion swept across her face.  _

_ “You and Hill?” _

_ Natasha doesn’t say anything for a minute, just lets the sentence stew, connotate itself through all the despair that could happen if it fell into the wrong hands. After a while, she settles for a: _

_ “How’d you know?” _

_ May, not knowing what she’s going to say will have a profound impact on Natasha simply says, “You look at her like she means the whole world to you.” _

_ Natasha follows May’s gaze, catching Maria’s eye. She raises her eyebrows at her, and Maria rolls her eyes back. It’s clear she would rather be anywhere but in a conversation with Tony and Thor. _

_ “She does.” _

-

It took them a year, but the Avengers finally came back together. She wasn’t expecting much, but she was content with what she got.

_ “How lovely. It’s a Spice Girls reunion tour.” Natasha said bluntly. _

_ Bruce turned to her with wide eyes. “The Spice Girls reunited?” _

_ Tony hummed an agreement. “Without Posh though.” _

_ “Who are exactly the Spice Girls?” Thor asked. “Do they make spices as their name intended?” _

_ “This is great,” Clint muttered to himself and leaned deeper into his chair. “This is great.” _

They're not best buddies, not that she was expecting that, but they get along just fine. With everything that happened it's the best she can ask for.

In the first 6 months of their reunion they work every day to try and get everyone back.

By the first year it's only Natasha, Steve and Bruce. Thor’s back to Asgard and Clint’s fucked off somewhere.

By the fifth year Natasha's the only active Avenger working day and night.

She’s not the same person she once was. The dark circles under her eyes have seemed to tattoo themselves permanently, she’s given up the blonde and her roots have grown out. Her diet mainly consists of peanut butter and jam sandwiches.

Natasha is making herself a meal which doesn’t consist of peanut butter and jam for the first time in ages when Steve walks in. 

“There was this guy who came to the support group today,” He starts slowly, “Lost his husband. Went on a date for the first time in years.” He pauses.

“He moved on Natasha. I think you need to too.”

She stops in her tracks. “Don't tell me to move on Steve, when you're still stuck seventy years ago, wishing you were with Peggy.” She turns around, inching her way up to his face, he can see the anger in her eyes.

“Don't tell me to fucking move on from my wife. Don't you dare.” 

She takes a final bite of her lasagna and throws it in the bin on her way out.

-

She doesn’t want to admit it, but she’s losing hope.

Hope is a dangerous thing (literally and figuratively.)

Once you hold onto it, you’ll try your hardest to never let go. But you can’t hold on forever. 

You have to let it fall at one point.

Natasha thinks she’s at the stage of whether to let it fall.

-

She’s falling. 

For a brief moment, it feels like she’s flying until the day dreaming stops because she’s seconds from hitting the ground, snapped back to reality. 

Time doesn’t move slow when you die, the movies, books, lied to you. It’s those few seconds, before your imminent death where you really, truly think about your life. 

Better to go out your own way than letting someone else control it.

_ Really _ , she thinks,  _ what’s one life against seven billion? _

_ Fuck, Maria- _

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> natasha romanoff still dead in this universe :(
> 
> -  
> hi i'm making a blackhill rec website, kinda like goodreads so please drop your favourite (i dont care how many, give me 20 if you feel like it!) blackhill fics in the comments. 
> 
> you can see the (incomplete) website here (works only on laptops sorry): https://blackhillfics.tumblr.com
> 
> -  
> @DIRECTORHILL on twitter.


End file.
